First Aid Books . . . A Worthwhile Investment For Your Business

Whatever size of business you run, if you employ staff you will need to ensure adequate first aid provision for them. If you don’t currently provide first aid books for your personnel to refer to, or your first aid books are not up to date, now is a good time to get your information updated.

As an employer, The Health and Safety (First Aid) Regulations 1981, require you to provide “adequate and appropriate first aid equipment, facilities and people, so your employees can be given immediate help if they are injured or taken ill at work.”

While the HSE does not spell out exactly what is required in terms of ‘provisions’ for each type of industry or size of business premises, it does state that the minimum first aid provision for every workplace is:

A suitably stocked first aid box

An appointed person to take charge of first aid arrangements

Information for employees about first aid arrangements

Although by law you do not have to provide a qualified first aider in your place of work, you are required to appoint someone to take charge of first aid arrangements.

So what does this actually mean?

It means that the person you appoint will need to take charge of the first aid equipment, look after any designated first aid treatment or recovery areas and they will also need to be responsible for alerting outside medical personnel or the emergency services if necessary. You should also assign a deputy in case the appointed person is away from the premises when such an incident occurs. If you have a qualified first aider on your staff, then you will only need to appoint a secondary person to take charge of arrangements for when your first aider is absent.

As a responsible employer providing first aid books your staff can readily refer to is a really sound idea. First aid training books are generally a better investment than videos as your first aider or appointed first aid person can readily refer to them any time they need to, whereas videos tend to get watched once and then get shut away in a drawer.

If you decide your workforce needs to appoint a first aider, then they will need to undergo formal training for an HSE-approved qualification. They will also need to attend a refresher course of an annual basis to keep their skills up to date.